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Lowell native on death row in Va.

By Sarah Favot, sfavot@lowellsun.com

Updated:
01/11/2013 01:37:23 PM EST

Robert Gleason

PELHAM -- As he was preparing for his next customer in his tattoo shop, Mike Lafontaine recalled memories of the man he taught how to tattoo, who he stood beside during the man's wedding and who is the father of his godson.

That man, Lowell native Robert C. Gleason Jr., will be executed Wednesday night at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va.

Gleason has refused to appeal his execution, saying he will kill more people if he is allowed to remain in prison, where he has taken the lives of two inmates.

Gleason, 42, was serving life without parole for the 2007 murder of Michael Kent Jamerson in Amherst County, Va., when he went on to strangle a cellmate and then another inmate in Virginia's most secure prisons.

In 2010, a judge sentenced Gleason to the death penalty twice for the murders.

Gleason is now on death row, awaiting his execution in five days.

A capital defense attorney has filed documents questioning Gleason's mental competency when he waived all of his appeals to the death penalty, the Bristol Herald Courier reported.

The judge on Thursday refused to block the execution.

Lafontaine said he met Gleason in the 1980's when he was a customer in his shop.

Lafontaine and his partner at Tattoo Fever in Pelham, Dana Thornell, inked tattoos on Gleason's entire back. Many tattoos were portraits including one of The Three Stooges, Lafontaine remembered.

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Lafontaine said Gleason got into trouble as a kid, but he took Gleason under his wing and helped him straighten out.

Lafontaine said he taught Gleason how to tattoo and hired him in his shop. He also took him on as a mason tender at a local masonry.

"I helped him to try to quit drinking and drugging," said Lafontaine.

Gleason served time as a teenager in the former Southeastern Correctional Center in Bridgewater, now Old Colony Correctional Center, a Massachusetts Department of Corrections spokeswoman confirmed. Gleason was released in July 1988, at age 18.

Lafontaine said Gleason was doing well and staying off substances. He got married and had a son they call JoJo, who is Lafontaine's godson.

Lafontaine said Gleason's life turned back to drugs and alcohol when the family moved down south for warmer weather.

Lafontaine lost touch with Gleason, but stays in touch with Gleason's ex-wife who lives in Florida and his godson who is now 21.

When asked if he was surprised when he heard about Gleason's crimes in Virginia, Lafontaine stopped what he was doing and looked up.

"I knew that he always had it in him," Lafontaine said.

In 2009, Gleason killed his cellmate Harvey Watson Jr., 63, by strangulation in a high-security Virginia state prison.

Gleason had apparently begged correctional officers and counselors at Wallens Ridge State Prison to move his cellmate after constant singing, screaming and obnoxious behavior drove Gleason to the edge, the Associated Press reported.

Gleason told the AP he would continue killing unless given the death penalty.

"I murdered that man cold-bloodedly. I planned it and I'm gonna do it again. Someone needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is to put me on death row," he said in 2010.

After the 2009 murder, Gleason was transferred to the state's only supermax lock-up, where inmates are held in isolation 23 hours each day. Gleason strangled inmate Aaron Cooper, 26, in an adjoining outdoor recreation cage in July 2010.

Cooper was dead more than an hour before corrections officers found him, even though there were security cameras and a watch tower overlooking individual cages, according to the AP.

Gleason received two death penalty sentences in September 2010.

He did not appeal his sentencing.

"I did the crime and this is the punishment. It is what it is," Gleason told the AP in June. "I ain't going to go kill a bunch of people and say, 'Oh don't do that to me.'"

When asked about Gleason's seeming license to kill, Lafontaine said he wasn't surprised at his brazen attitude.

"I just thought he was trying to be the baddest dude in jail," said Lafontaine.

Gleason's family members made arrangements to have a paid obituary appear in The Sun on Jan. 17.

According to the obituary, Gleason is the son of the late Robert and Brenda Gleason, of Lowell. His family said he is an award-winning tattoo artist. Gleason was known as "Smilin Bob," his family said.

He attended Greater Lowell Technical High School and went to art school in North Carolina.

Gleason's best attribute was the love he had for his family, according to the obituary. Gleason will leave behind four children and two grandchildren.

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